CIBJO Releases EU Committee Special Report Ahead Of Moscow Congress

(IDEX Online News) – CIBJO, the World Jewellery Confederation, has released the eighth of its Special Reports a week before the start of its annual congress in Moscow.

Prepared by the CIBJO EU Committee, headed by CIBJO President Gaetano Cavalieri and coordinated by Thilo Brückner, the report looks at liaison activities conducted by CIBJO with the European Commission, with the goal of advancing the interests of the jewelry industry in European Union member states.

The EU Committee was established at the 2013 CIBJO Congress last May. A month later, a delegation of CIBJO members led by Cavalieri, including representatives from France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, met with representatives of the EU Commission in Brussels. The EU team was led by Tung-Lai Margue, the head of the body's service for foreign policy instruments.

One of the goals of the EU Committee was to convince the European Commission to avoid the unintended consequences of the conflict minerals legislation contained in the Dodd-Frank Act in the United States, which many feel has led to a de facto embargo of gold producers from the Great Lakes region of Africa.

The EU Committee's lobbying efforts appear to have been successful, Brückner writes in the report."The first regulation proposal presented by the EU Commission in March 2014 avoids compulsory legislation," he states.